The snake on this Wari vessel (800-1000 AD) represented a sacred animal symbolically linked with water and fertility. Ernest Amoroso, NMAI/SI A belt (ca. 1450) made from the shell of a mollusk ...

The Inca Empire in South America, one of the most powerful pre-Columbian societies, was known for many innovations — such as the architecture of Machu Picchu, an extensive road network, and a system ...

If bones could scream, a bloodcurdling din would be reverberating through a 500-year-old cemetery in Peru. Human skeletons unearthed there have yielded the first direct evidence of Inca fatalities ...

"Land of the Four Quarters" or Tahuantinsuyu is the name the Inca gave to their empire. It stretched north to south some 2,500 miles along the high mountainous Andean range from Colombia to Chile and ...

The Inca city in Peru is one of the most recognizable historical sites in the world. Built in the mid-15th century, it served as a royal estate for the rulers of the Inca Empire before the arrival of ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: The Inca never built a world of silicon chips or copper-wired circuits, and the high-speed hardware of modern times was something they simply didn’t ...

The discovery of a vast Inca tunnel system beneath the historic heart of Cusco has turned a whispered legend into mapped stone. After centuries in which locals spoke of a hidden labyrinth running from ...

Researchers have uncovered fascinating new insights into an ancient mountaintop settlement high up in the Peruvian Andes, which pre-dates the famous Inca site of Machu Picchu. National Geographic ...

Before smartphones, spreadsheets, or even written alphabets as we know them, the Inca appear to have managed information in a ...

Scientists used the quipu’s data to build working spreadsheets, file systems, and encryption tools, rivaling conventional computing methods.